In Rwanda, the craze for milk bars

By Laure Broulard

Posted on January 01, 2022 at 10:00 a.m., updated at 5:45 a.m.

He still has a streak of white foam above his lips. Ferdinand Mutsinzi timidly wipes it off as he puts his pint back on the table. It is 10 a.m. in Kigali and, like every day, this young trader took a break and went to his favorite bar in the Rwandan capital to chat with a friend over a drink ofishyushyu. This word, in Kinyarwanda, the national language, does not designate a local beer but… fresh milk.

Here, the “white gold” is served on draft, directly from the cistern which sits at the back of the room and which stirs in an incessant purring the some 150 liters of cow’s milk delivered in the early morning. Everything will be sold during the day, at around 50 euro cents a pint.

Faithful to Rwandan restraint and modesty, Ferdinand Mutsinzi does not like to talk about him. But when it comes to milk bars, his tongue loosens: “Here, it’s my own bar. I am not going anywhere else to drink my two liters of milk daily. “ Around him, everything, from real estate to painting the walls, pays homage to the favorite drink of Rwandans. In this temple of milk with blue and white decor, he feels at ease, at home. “I grew up under the udders of family cows, milking, drinking milk, loving milk”, says the thirty-something.

At the back table, a motorcycle taxi has just plunged its nose into its glass. “The curds help me with my stomach problems”, he blurted out before putting his helmet back on and leaving. “Milk is extremely nutritious, a child cannot suffer from malnutrition if he drinks it”, the boss adds from the back of the counter.

An unprecedented shortage of milk

It’s hard to say how many milk bars there are in Kigali. At least several hundred. Almost all the social classes of this small Central African country meet there: taxi drivers who have come to have a snack between two races, teachers seated in front of a glass of hot milk and a mandazi, this fried donut typical of East Africa, students whispering while sipping a cup of chocolate milk … In refrigerators with glass doors, we find the rest of the range of Rwandan dairy products: fermented milk, better known locally as ofikivuguto, strawberry or vanilla yogurts, and small jars of ghee, traditional clarified butter.

“Before the arrival of Europeans, the more important you were, the more cows you had. Today it has above all become a symbol. »Déogratias Byanafashe, former professor at the University of Butare

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